Heston Blumenthal: my new Alice in Wonderland menu

Today, molecular gastronomist Heston Blumenthal unveils his new tasting menu
to diners at his Fat Duck restaurant in Bray. Here, he shows Jasper Gerard
around his kitchen laboratory - and reveals how he dreamed up gold-leaf soup
that comes from a tea bag and a sorbet that ignites at the click of a
waiter's fingers

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Fat Duck chef Heston Blumenthal in his kitchen laboratory, with tubes of gooseberry juice being reduced, to be used in his new roast fois gras recipe

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New addition: roast foie gras with gooseberry

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Heston Blumenthal lives up to his title of 'the Lewis Carol of cooking' with his new mock turtle soup: a gold-leaf "tea bag" on a string, shaped like a Mad Hatters' fob watch, that releases a dried consommé when hot water is addedPhoto: Andrew Crowley

By Jasper Gerard

7:00AM BST 01 Jul 2009

We are in the experimental laboratory near the Fat Duck, discussing an edible fob watch that features in a new dish that takes its theme from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. And in the company of Heston Blumenthal, that seems almost rational. He is the Lewis Carol of cooking, whose snail porridge and egg and bacon ice-cream lured a sceptical public through a door into a Wonderland of fantasy food.

Now, he has devised a new menu for the first time since his tiny Berkshire restaurant was voted the finest in the world back in 2005. And while "chef changes menu shocker" rarely makes a splash, rivals have already squashed their noses against the window in Bray to see what our man has conjured up.

Away from his beloved lab, Blumenthal has endured a testing time. It was global news when the Fat Duck closed briefly in February after cases of suspected food poisoning. And Blumenthal has just announced he will open his first London restaurant, provoking charges that, like Gordon Ramsay, he is cashing in on his celebrity status and in danger of spreading himself pancake-thin.

But Blumenthal's face as he teaches me how to cook his entirely experimental tasting tasting menu – the new elements of which will be unveiled at the Bray restaurant from lunchtime today – is one of total absorption. The dish that will surely provoke most delight or derision – depending on what you make of molecular gastronomy – will be his flaming sorbet. Blumenthal created it with a magician so, at the click of a waiter's fingers, the barley sorbet in a bowl of hidden compartments bursts alight, turning warm outside yet remaining ice-cold inside. As a fire crackles around the sorbet, a rolling vapour of whisky and leather transports you to some Scottish hunting lodge at Christmas.

But while all your senses struggle to take it in, Blumenthal is off again, talking intensely about playing-cards made of white chocolate, or how to pour still and sparkling mineral water from the same bottle.

There are less gimmicky, "foodie" additions on the new tasting menu, include a fabulous roast foie gras with gooseberry, braised kombu (Japanese seaweed) and crab biscuit; powdered Anjou pigeon with black pudding and pigeon heart; lamb with cucumber, onion and dill fluid gel; and incredible puddings, including chocolate wine slush with "millionaire shortbread". There have been whispers that the Fat Duck is no longer Britain's finest restaurant; expect that silliness to die down once my fellow critics tongue test the new menu.

But for many punters, the allure of the Fat Duck is as much theatricality as gastronomy. His take on mock turtle soup is particularly joyous: a "tea bag" on a string, served in china cup and resembling a Mad Hatters' fob watch, actually comprises dried consommé covered in gold leaf. Once hot water is poured onto it from a teapot, it dissolves into a clear soup. You then pour the cup into a bowl where various ingredients – even turnip – are arranged into a scene from Alice in Wonderland, with a little "caterpillar" seemingly smoking a hookah atop a giant mushroom. Extraordinary, and refreshing, too.

This is indeed Wonderland, but also Willy Wonker's Chocolate Factory. "We wanted to make entering the Fat Duck like going into a sweet shop," Blumenthal explains. "We experimented with one of those old-fashioned bells, with perfume jets as you enter giving the aromas of humbugs, tobacco and even the oak of shelves."

After lunch, each diner will be presented with a bag of rather superior sweets, including apple pie-flavoured soft toffee in edible wrappers, and chocolates aerated by being placed in a kind of rocket with blue flashing lights. Jaffa Cakes, Aero bars, and anything that returns Blumenthal to his much hankered-after 70s childhood is re-worked for our now adult palates. Really, I venture, you are a frustrated Dr Who, aren't you? "Absolutely," he smiles, as if to say: "Isn't everyone?"

His boyish enthusiasm (a regular phrase is "This is so exciting!") is never stronger than when discovering a new gizmo. "Look at this," he beckons me into a tiny room stuffed with gadgets. "This may look like a tumble dryer, but put this bottle in and watch." I place a bottle of red gooseberries in a holder while Blumenthal inserts a memory stick. The machine removes water at a pre-programmed rate, leaving pure concentrate. Even before I taste, he smirks; he knows it will blow my palate. Amazing.

To those who think all this is show, Blumenthal employs 30 technicians in his lab, funded partly by his TV celebrity. The bowls alone for the exploding sorbet "cost more to make than two new bathrooms in the restaurant. All the other stuff I do is to earn money to protect the Fat Duck."

As well as being futuristic, virtually every "new" dish has ancient roots. To inspire the latest menu, Blumenthal hired a librarian to scour the British Library for yellowing recipes. So the "mock turtle soup" is based partly on a recipe from 1805. And while his snail porridge was ridiculed – mainly by those who'd never tasted it – his librarian unearthed surprising precedents: "There was a recipe for cheese and onion porridge, and that was from Tudor times." His point: if you are shocked by his cooking habits, you should study those of Merrie Olde England.

Blumenthal's uniqueness is his combination of history and cutting-edge science. So as well as forgotten recipes, new software identifies component molecules of foods, helping him mix seemingly contradictory ingredients. As he says "an apple alone has 200 components, so we can draw from it so many different flavours".

But as well as researcher, he is also a restaurateur. The salmonella scare in February, during which the Fat Duck closed for two and a half weeks, left him "seriously out of pocket. Two staff tested positive but had no symptoms. If it is found to be airborne, we will receive no insurance."

He notes that "fuddy-duddy" rivals have sought to blame the health scare on molecular gastronomy, but Blumenthal replies: "If it was from food, it could happen to any restaurant. You buy fresh oysters – how do you know what's in them?"

Having been attacked, he sympathises with Gordon Ramsay. "It's open season," Blumenthal ventures. "He has brought Michelin-star food to more people in Britain than anyone." And while tantrums are hardly the style of softly-spoken Blumenthal, he says: "Gordon's shouty screen persona is what people enjoy watching."

At the Fat Duck, people just enjoy watching Blumenthal. As we enter, diners down forks and gawp. And while many rock star chefs revel in such attention, Heston shrinks away. "This is why," he whispers, "I feel uncomfortable entering the restaurant now."

But he must grow used to the limelight. Next project is entering hospitals to investigate how they can improve food, an even bigger challenge than Jamie's School Dinners. And then there is his new restaurant to open next year at London's Mandarin Oriental hotel. He insists he won't be overstretched because, despite the hype, the Mandarin will serve classic dishes requiring less preparation. The menu will be drawn largely from the old a la carte menu at the Fat Duck. He will remain in the laboratory kitchen at Bray.

Creating the next culinary experience at the Fat Duck remains his obsession. He can at last expand the tiny cottage restaurant, after a 90-year-old neighbour recently died. "Nothing to do with me, I promise," he smiles shyly.

For a while he thought about buying a big restaurant with a swish river view. But expansions, chains and restaurant refits are hardly what get his gastro-juices flowing. "For me," he says, at last looking me firmly in the eye, "the chandeliers will always be in the food."